Tens Of Billions Of Additional Barrels Of Oil Remain To Be Tapped Miles Below Gulf Of Mexico, Cornell Geologist Says

NEW ORLEANS -- U.S. reliance on foreign oil production could be reduced by chemically mapping the subsurface streams of hydrocarbons, amounting to tens of billions of barrels, hidden well below the Gulf of Mexico, says a Cornell University geologist.

These untapped oil and gas reserves can be found by matching hydrocarbon chemical signatures with geologic models for stratigraphic layers under the sea floor, says Lawrence M. Cathles, a professor of chemical geology at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y.

"The undiscovered gas and oil potential of the Gulf of Mexico is very large," says Cathles. "We have produced only a small fraction, and the deep-water potential for finding more there is big. In terms of potential, it is bigger than the North Sea. It's about a big a deal as there is."

Cathles will present his findings in a talk, "Massive Hydrocarbon Venting with Minor, Constantly Replenished (Flow-Through) Retention in a 100 x 200 km Area Offshore Louisiana Gulf of Mexico," at the 225th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans at 1:30 p.m. CST on March 27.

The northern Gulf of Mexico basin is one of the world's most active areas of hydrocarbon exploration. A study of an area of about 9,500 square miles, found that hydrocarbons currently are being naturally generated from strata deposited during the Tertiary and Jurassic periods, miles below the sea floor. Hydrocarbons are leaking through natural vents at hundreds of locations, and these vent sites have been visited and studied by Cathles and other researchers using small submarines. What makes this area offshore of Louisiana important is the presence of two types of hydrocarbon deep below the gulf floor: the deeper, early-maturing Jurassic and the later-maturing Tertiary. Each has a distinctive chemistry. As these sources mature, the hydrocarbons migrate upward toward the surface through what can be thought of as a myriad of small streams and ponds, much like a natural water system. Just how much liquid hydrocarbon is retained within this subsurface network is a matter of crucial interest, Cathles says.

More than 70 percent of the hydrocarbons that have been naturally generated have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds and vented into the ocean. The hydrocarbons are digested by bacteria, which then become food for the gulf's marine life. The earlier-generated, sulfur-rich, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons are replaced by the shallower, later-generated, shale-sourced Tertiary hydrocarbons which fill the producing reservoirs in the northern part of the study area. This displacement of Jurassic by Tertiary oil provides geologists with a measure of the remaining untapped oil and gas below the gulf's floor.

The hydrocarbons hidden within the subsurface ponds and streams are about 8 to 10 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's total hydrocarbons. In the study area this represents about 60 billion barrels of oil and 370 trillion cubic feet of gas and is the hydrocarbon that could be extracted, Cathles says. (The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay stored in the source strata.)

Cathles says that the telltale chemistry of the hydrocarbons reflects the streams and ponds through which they migrated, and thus could point to the ponds that remain to be discovered and produced. Ultimately he hopes that looking at the hydrocarbon chemistry in this new way could provide geologists with accurate information on the presence and size of the deeper reservoirs. He says: "By combining chemical data from currently producing reservoirs with seismic images of the subsurface using computer migration models, drilling for new deep reservoirs can be facilitated."

Funding for the research was provided by the Gas Research Institute in a joint project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Yes, maybe Americans would have jobs (you know they did this before the Mexicans came) and our schools could spend their money teaching our children and our hospitals might be able to stay open to treat Americans.

In the war of 1846 - our government was on our side - in this situation - they are not.

First we suck dry the middle east as payback for all the trouble they've caused over the centuries, leaving them to eat dist after squandering the wealth they've gained, then we turn to more local, less volitial fields.

23
posted on 03/31/2003 4:43:11 PM PST
by AFreeBird
(God Bless, God Speed and safe return of our troops, and may God's love be with the fallen and family)

It will be a cold day in h*ll when the enviros let this be drilled. They would rather it leak into the ocean to be used for fish food!

The prefer everybody to either drive (non-existent) electric cars or live in cities and depend on public transportation. That way, they get to use the remainder of the abandoned country as their own nature preserve and use the rest of us as slaves to labor on their favorite fantasies.

You have probably never been in the Gulf of Mexico in a boat. There are LOTS of oil wells already drilled out there. I can't see the enviro's stopping the drilling of more. The best fishing is *always* around the oil structures.

These untapped oil and gas reserves can be found by matching hydrocarbon chemical signatures with geologic models for stratigraphic layers under the sea floor, says Lawrence M. Cathles, a professor of chemical geology at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y.

I worry for this man's safety: he's advocating new drilling, and he's doing it in the City of Evil!

What makes this area offshore of Louisiana important is the presence of two types of hydrocarbon deep below the gulf floor: the deeper, early-maturing Jurassic and the later-maturing Tertiary. Each has a distinctive chemistry. As these sources mature, the hydrocarbons migrate upward toward the surface through what can be thought of as a myriad of small streams and ponds, much like a natural water system.

Question-begging, assuming the "source" lies in the Tertiary or Jurassic rather than underlying both. A better explanation is that each type of hydrocarbon has a distinctive chemistry because of the strata through which it migrates. The continuous flow is better explained by a constant upwelling and cracking of primordial methane as it flows upward through rock of varying density and pore structure than by an in-situ formation of petroleum from buried organic precursors.

Oil doesn't migrate through "streams" or collect in "ponds." Maybe they dumbed this down for the general public, but it's grossly misleading and casts doubts on the seriousness of this study.

Actually petroleum does flow in streams and collect under regions of relatively more impermeable overburden. This would make a pond or pool of oil, albeit upsidedown. Water flows because of gravity. Petroleum flows because of pressure gradients. Water collects in places out of which it cannot flow and in which the porosity is overcome by the inflow. Petroleum collects under formations the porosity of which is insufficient to handle the flow. In places where such overburden doesn't exist, the oil and accompanying methane flows right out of the ground. In some places the porosity is such that the petroleum is blocked from reaching the surface but not the methane, resulting in people lawns or fields catching on fire.

Ancient earthquake faults provide leaks from one rock strata to another, but it's still nothing that can be accurately described as a stream.

Even in the absence of ancient earthquake faults, the migration of oil can accurately be described as a stream. Anything that streams from one place to another is a stream just as anything that flows is a fluid. The rate at which the phenomenon occurs in one versus another instance doesn't alter the fundamental nature the phenomenon, just the perception of it.

"Nah, the oil is ours by the nature of one simple fact, Mexico does not have the capabilities to retrieve it."

A book I'm reading on the U.N. describes some shenanigans concerning "The Law of the Sea" treaty, in which non- seafaring nations attempted to claim a portion of the profits made from mining the sea (while abstaining from sharing the costs).

Their con? They labelled the sea "the common heritage of mankind."

Reagan said no cigar and killed the thing. Don't know if it has been resurrected though.

My dear Fellow Freepers here's the very large and very long range strategy: The USA will use oil from other parts of the world before we even think about using the oil readily available to us. This makes sense in the very long time frame! Think about it! We will have the "nuts" stored away when the winter comes.

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